I'm guessing it belongs to the government. I read somewhere that you aren't allowed to use a metal detector in Sweden because there so many buried caches. The largest cache in Sweden was found in the area that my family farmed for centuries. I say it was buried by one of my viking ancestors and belongs to us. The Swedish government disagrees.

jmsvrsn:Tom_Slick: Did the kid get to keep them or is Denmark like England?

I'm guessing it belongs to the government. I read somewhere that you aren't allowed to use a metal detector in Sweden because there so many buried caches. The largest cache in Sweden was found in the area that my family farmed for centuries. I say it was buried by one of my viking ancestors and belongs to us. The Swedish government disagrees.

That's why you don't blab to the world when you find something like this.

Nah, metal detectors are too light for bashing, don't hold an edge well enough for slicing and don't come to a point. Some Viking probably threw it away, picked up a tree branch and beat some guy's head in with the branch instead.

And this is why you don't blab to the world when you don't know what the fark you're talking about. Sure, they could just keep it but never really show it to anyone or talk about it. But where's the fun and profit in that?

The Danish National Museum pays a reward, when you hand in Danefæ. We're not talking huge sums of money, but a rare treasure like this should net the finders at least $20,000. Not to mention a bit of fame, maybe a couple of dates for the nerdy kid, and the gratitude of the rest of the population, who get a chance to learn more about our country's early history.

Alternatively they could have attempted to smuggle it out and sell it on the global black antiquities market, to which a family of hicks from Northern Jutland is probably not well connected, and run the risk of getting a criminal record and a fine with no guarantee of a higher payout than the official reward.If they didn't get caught, it would likely end up in someone's private collection where nobody would see it and archeologists and historians wouldn't have access, while the finders would have to keep silent about their luck.